Why I don't have too many short positions as yet

The increased volatility on the indices shows no signs of abating, and despite the two day rally at the end of last week, prices have started falling again, with the Dow currently toying with the 15,000 level. 



The FTSE has already breached the previous week's low, whereas the other indices I've shown are somewhat above that level. As I've said on more than one occasion, what one person may consider to be a retracement within an existing trend, another trader may consider to be a trend reversal. 

Only you can determine that, based on your preferred timeframe, system parameters or whatever method you use to determine such things.

I've had a couple of 'false starts' with some short signals, resulting in small losses, however the bias in my positions is slowly switching to the short side. The other issue I've encountered the last few days is that plenty of the short signals do not meet my 'visual criteria', which I consider an important factor in selecting which stock to trade. 

Ed Seykota mentioned in his Market Wizards interview that the current chart pattern is one of the pimary components of his trading, and I also subscribe to that theory. Given the price action that has occurred over the last few days, I am expecting a lot more signals which meet my criteria to appear.